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And so, at long last, 2015 draws to a close. It's been an incredibly busy year, with a deluge of exciting new devices, policy twists and tribulations, and freshly minted startup unicorns. December was a quiet month, though: there was a big ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, and some interesting acquisitions, but mostly everyone seems to be biding their time for the new year. CES in Las Vegas and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona are now just around the corner!

Here's the top tech news from December 2015.

GoPro has quietly acquired Zurich-based Skybotix, a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The company created—and has now discontinued—the “Visual-Inertial (VI) sensor,” which was meant to be used in unmanned vehicles and robotic devices to help save lives during crises and emergencies. It was also able to direct drones in complex flying environments. Given that GoPro is working on a drone of its own, it’s the most likely reason behind the deal.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that blanket surveillance is a violation. Although the case was about mobile network operators in Russia, it also applies to the UK, and could be used as ammunition against the new Investigative Powers Bill. The bill, also known as Snooper’s Charter, currently calls for a major extension of surveillance powers. Senior figures from British ISPs and telcos told MPs that the bill’s proposals are “so technically complex that it is not yet possible to make any meaningful estimate of the costs involved or whether they are technically possible.” Apple joined the ranks of critics of the initiative and called upon the UK government to rethink and scale down the draft law.

Finnish mobile device and software company Jolla has announced that it’s back in business after some financial turbulence. After an unexpected delay, Jolla says it has now finished its latest funding round, securing “solid new financing to the company.” It is still unclear, however, when the company will ship the Jolla Tablet to crowdfunding backers.

Dropbox has joined other cloud providers in announcing new storage options within the European Union. The US-based company will also add two European offices in Hamburg and Amsterdam in 2016. The step is explained by the fact that “customer requirements in the region have evolved” and seems logical after the EU's top court struck down the US-EU Safe Harbour agreement in October.

Volkswagen Group said that German regulators approved its proposed fixes to vehicles with diesel engines that include defeat devices that released illegal amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOx) while the vehicles were being driven under normal conditions. The 1.2 and 1.0 litre engines will only require a software update, which takes “under half an hour,” according to Volkswagen Group. The 1.6 litre engines will also need to be fitted with a “flow rectifier,” which could take a mechanic “under an hour.”

Enlarge/ 3D-printed cradle that houses the current prototype of the XE case

Andrii Degeler

Ukrainian startup XE claims to have solved long-range wireless charging. The wireless power delivery tech uses the same principle as a crystal radio. The productised version of the technology will consist of a base charging station of about 15×15×40cm and a 3mm thick smartphone case. It’s claimed to be able to transfer electricity simultaneously to up to four devices that are up to five metres (16ft) away.

Vandals have damaged a building housing Facebook's offices in Hamburg. They smashed glass, threw paint, and sprayed "Facebook dislike" on a wall. One of the reasons of the attack could be Facebook’s failure to quickly remove racist posts from the website. In a related news, the German government later struck a deal with Facebook, Twitter, and Google, whereby they promised to remove hate speech within 24 hours.

The European Commission has unveiled a new "modern, more European" copyright framework, which ruled out a tax on hyperlinks but could still lead to the introduction of a Europe-wide ancillary copyright, also known as “the Google tax.” It would require people to pay a licensing fee for the use of short snippets online. There have been previous attempts at introducing this kind of tax in Spain and Germany, but they failed miserably.

An Oxford, England company is now selling endohedral fullerenes for £110 million per gram. This valuation likely makes the material the second most valuable on Earth, preceded only by antimatter. Endofullerenes could be used in miniature atomic clocks for super-accurate GPS. One of the potential use cases is in driverless cars that need to be positioned on the road as accurately as possible.

London startup Blaze will have its Laserlight technology integrated into 11,500 Boris bikes across London. Blaze’s laser-based device projects a green image about five metres (16ft) in front of the cyclist in order to make them visible to other road users. In September, Laserlight had been trialled on 250 Santander cycles. It’s unclear how many of Blaze’s devices have been sold through usual retail channels: at £125 per piece they're much more expensive than a traditional bike light.

A top-secret document revealed that UK spy agency GCHQ exploited vulnerabilities in Juniper firewalls. Dated February 2011, it also makes clear that the exploitation went on with the knowledge and apparent cooperation of the NSA. The security vulnerabilities in 13 different models of firewalls made by Juniper Networks were disclosed earlier in December and contained a backdoor disguised to look like debug code.

German startup FeelSpace uses a belt made of vibrating motors to help the blind feel the right direction. The team of researchers from Osnabrück has developed a prototype of the device that can connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth and translate turn-by-turn navigation information into vibrations on the corresponding side of the belt. The initial price of the belt is expected to be about €800 (£590), however actual users will need to pay much less as the device’s cost will be covered fully or partially by their health insurance.

You can safely interact with a Fleye drone without losing a hand.

A Belgian startup called Fleye has built a drone that won't hurt you if you accidentally come into contact with it. The company has launched a €175,000 Kickstarter campaign and, at the time of publishing, has just hit its goal. In early December, a British toddler had his right eye sliced in half after a neighbour's drone clipped a tree and "spun out of control"—the kind of incident that the Fleye hopes to prevent in the future.

Google Ventures has discontinued its $125 million (£84 million) European fund. In a statement, Google Ventures said that “starting in January we’ll operate as a global fund, rather than running separate US and European funds. This gives us more flexibility and dollars to invest in the best founders and companies, regardless of where they are based, and reduces limitations of a specific fund size. Aside from this, it’s business as usual for the team in London—nothing else changes.”

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Andrii Degeler
Andrii is a contributing reporter at Ars Technica UK, covering a wide range of topics from policy to hardware and crowdfunding. He holds a master's degree in Journalism from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Emailandrii@proceed.to//Twitter@adegeler